CRITICS PICK! A MUST-SEE OF THE FRINGE!

Mouthy Bitch

Reviews from the world premiere run at the Cincinnati Fringe Festival:

Critic’s Pick!

In this one-woman play by Dennis Bush we meet Kate Carden, a self-styled expert on male/female relationships. Kate is as confident as she is profane, pronouncing truisms about sexual dynamics as illustrated by one outrageous personal anecdote after another. Yet by the end of the play, we realize that, to her at least, there is more rationalization than truth in her philosophy.

It starts innocently enough. Kate recounts graphic moments from her relationships, most of them funny and some wildly so. There’s a lot of talk about women needing to accept their sexual equality with men. She casually undresses to her bra to underscore that she is in control of how people will look at her body and along the way, she’s so comfortable that it makes perfect sense.

But there is a flip side.

Things go wrong, almost always unexpectedly. The power point projector in the theater doesn’t work and she has to improvise. We hear about incidents with her family, with boyfriends and at a party. We learn that she’s been told (sometimes expressly) that she needs to embrace those unexpected moments to find freshness in her life.

This is when things become most interesting, because the play sets us up. So much of the script and her delivery are light, bawdy and funny that the other moments — when we see how Kate has learned about heartbreak — take us completely by surprise. We learn that, for Kate at least, there really are no surprises: Despite her bravado, she’s learned that one should expect to ultimately be disappointed and hurt.

While this might sound depressing, it’s not. It just depends on whether one sees life as a glass half-full rather than half-empty. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Kate has decided to be optimistic… showing us her well-crafted armor with an occasional, tragic glimpse at the heartbreak beneath it. While I enjoyed the play’s humor, it was the tragic moments — each of which was startling — that gave the play its depth and made me think about it well after leaving the theater.

— Ed Cohen, Cincinnati CityBeat

A Must-See of The Fringe!

The character in MOUTHY BITCH certainly is. A very mouthy bitch. But an insightful one. And an incredibly funny one.

I consider this solo performance a must-see of The Fringe, but I will warn you – it’s not for the faint at heart… Some of the things that come out of her mouth are more than foul – but not for the sake of being so. In fact, this brilliant script contains some of the most descriptively offensive sexual references I’ve ever heard on stage or off.

We, the audience, are at a seminar, and our host is a sort of feminist motivational speaker. With lots of baggage. Some of it is heart-wrenching to hear her re-live; but playwright Dennis Bush manages the horrific stories with plenty of hilarity. His descriptive language maintains an air of honesty and realism while describing things not ordinarily discussed in polite company with zeal.

— Kirk Sheppard, Cincinnati theatre critic